1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to reel brakes for use in a two-piece videocassette. One piece is a removable cartridge and the second piece is a complimentary videocassette adaptor. Together the two piece assembly emulates an industry standard videocassette.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has become common to use magnetic recording media supplied in a cassette format for consumer videotape applications. The traditional cassette format includes both a supply reel and a take-up reel. The tape is wound on to the supply reel. One end of this tape is permanently attached to this supply reel and the other end of the tape is permanently attached to the take-up reel. In the cassette, the supply reel and the take-up reel share the same housing, and, in use the videotape machine transports the tape between the two reels. This packaging strategy is inefficient for tape storage due to the inclusion of an empty reel in the package. In applications such as video cameras, the adoption of the cassette format has reduced the amount of tape available for use, and has required the development of specialized cassette-to-cassette adaptors.
For example, cassette-to-cassette adaptors which convert one cassette format to another cassette format are widely known and used as evidenced by U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,970 to H. Ogata. This patent teaches an adaptor or carrier which converts a miniature format videotape cassette to the standard VHS cassette format. This type of apparatus is used to provide VHS playback capabilities for consumer videotape cameras.
It has been proposed to supply magnetic recording media in a more compact and space efficient cartridge format for a variety of applications. In the cartridge format, the housing contains a single supply reel for storing tape. The "free" end of the tape must be threaded or other wise attached to a remote take-up reel.
Tape cartridges of various types have been in common use for storing magnetic media as evidenced by U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,101 to Smith, which teaches a single reel supply cartridge for storing magnetic tape. This type of cartridge is used in the computer industry.
Cartridge-to-cassette adaptors which convert a cartridge format product to a cassette format application are also known as evidenced by U.K. Patent Application No. 2,217,684 A to Davis for example. This reference teaches a videotape application of a single supply reel cartridge product.
Another example of a cartridge-to-cassette adaptors for videotape products is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,920,436 to Novak. Novak teaches, inter alia, a carrier or adaptor which is used to adapt a videotape cartridge to an industry standard videocassette format. With respect to the cartridge-to-cassette adaptor context, Novak provides a reel brake which prevents reel rotation in the "unwind" direction when the cartridge is out of the adaptor.
With respect to the videotape cassette product context, the "betamax" and "VHS" format cassettes among others provide brake structures. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,840 to Sugawara, teaches a pair of reel lock levers for preventing the reel from rotating at least in the tape unwinding direction.
Reel brakes are common in other cassette formats as well, as typified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,048 to Sieben, which teaches levers which may be actuated from outside the cassette.
With respect to the cartridge format context, U.S. Pat. No. 4,555,077 to Platter, et al. teaches radially disposed teeth arrays which immobilize the reel when the teeth mesh with a housing.